Fuel Stations

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Over the course of many years, automobile and truck fueling stations have been among the most troublesome and controversial businesses in terms of excessive, dangerous glare-producing lighting, especially that which is installed below the ceilings of overhead canopies.

Virtually all of these powerful fixtures are installed below the ceilings of the canopies and, worse yet, have glass or plastic lenses or diffusers that protrude below the bottoms of the fixtures. The bulbs within the fixtures are often aligned so that their brightest points are below any shielding and their rays escape horizontally with extreme intensity.

Seemingly the trend has been for owners of such businesses to continually increase the intensity of the lighting, possibly to compete with neighboring stations that have just increased theirs and we, therefore, get a 'ramping' effect, where the problems of glare and light trespass spiral out of control and fuel stations become absolute eye-sores and hazardous to motorists on nearby roadways everywhere they are located.

This view of the Western corner of a large station in Leesburg serves as an example. There are others that are far worse.

NOW, THE GOOD NEWS!

Upon hearing recently from several Planning Commissioners about a newly-built gasoline station in the Cascades area (about 200-yards East of Cascades Parkway on Algonkian Parkway and directly across from a dense residential development), I decided to venture out on the evening of August 13, 2003 and photograph the new station with my digital camera. It was raining intermittently, but between showers I was able to set up a tripod and get the following shots.

Just at 8:00PM the parking lot and canopy lights had come on. It was truly amazing to witness how well this lighting had been designed and installed! Even though the canopy doesn't have a large overhang, the lights are nearly invisible because the fixtures are recessed into the canopy ceiling and have no glass or plastic lenses protruding below.

Taken from the same general angle, this close-up view shows more detail, including the impressive cut-off parking lot lighting fixture on your left. Pole height is approximately 20-feet, and even though the pole and the fixture are white, glare is surprisingly minimal.

Then I decided to move down-hill and view the station from a low perspective, so we could actually see the ceiling of the canopy and look directly at the recessed fixtures.

This highly compressed photo doesn't offer you enough detail to see this, but the fixtures have short shields around their openings, so that even when viewed at the worst possible angle, they still manage to avoid producing much glare and do a superior job of getting the light down into the service area and keeping it out of the eyes of the neighbors.